Having just released Sister Death, an album being embraced worldwide for its captivating vocal tunes, Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores release a new video and prepare to embark on a European tour this May, visiting France, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Over the past 15 years, they have defined themselves as one of the USA’s most creative post-rock ensembles, crafting music that is uniquely rewarding and distinctly theirs alone.

Many words have been used to describe the group, but they all fall short of conveying the dark beauty of the music and lyrics written by Redfearn. The Eyesores’ unmistakable sound - a visionary Americana that interweaves folk music with avant rock - consists of poignant melodies and lyrics filled with doom-laden imagery. The songs are performed by a band that uses unusual instrumentation, (male and female vocals, accordion, double bass, French horn, organ, drums, percussion, electronics + many musical guests), in interesting and creative ways. The music touches on elements of Americana, folk, European cabaret, minimalism, noise, and progressive rock, but it ultimately transcends all categories except for 'excellence'.

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NEW MUSIC VIDEO: “The 7 and 6”

Cuneiform Records is proud to announce the world premiere of “The 7 and 6”, the new music video by Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores from their latest album Sister Death.

The video for “The 7 and 6” was directed by Courtney Brooke Hall and stars Samantha Derendal. Camera work and editing performed by Alec K. Redfearn. Writing, design, camera, color correction and wardrobe by Courtney Brooke Hall, with makeup by Nichole Bassette.

Alec K. Redfearn On The Making of “The "7 and 6":“The "7 and 6" video was a collaboration with art/fashion photographer Courtney Brooke Hall. I discovered Courtney's photos online in the early 2000's and was completely blown away. Her anachronistic use of subject and color bordered on the supernatural. I had assumed she owned a time machine. I finally had an opportunity to collaborate with her as a videographer/editor on the music video for Ex Reverie's "Black Butterfly". I was very pleased when she agreed to direct a video for The Eyesores. With a budget of nearly zero, the "7 and 6" video was shot over two days at the Quabbin Reservoir in Western Mass and at Blackstone Park in Providence, RI. An Edwardian period melodrama, the video tells, or at least implies, the tale of the suicide of a female criminal and occultist who is being hunted by a lynch mob. She finds the hanged body of her partner in crime/lover at the beginning and gathers materials. She eats poisonous mushrooms and hallucinates a ghostly alternate reality, in which a ghostly version of The Eyesores are performing, which she eventually joins in death. The hallucination sequence is dealt with from a POV perspective using a bunch of very quick edits creating a strobing effect and was intended to have a Burroughs/Gysin "Dream Machine" sort of effect. We felt it would be interesting to counter the vaguely turn of the century vibe with an 1950s/60s avant approach and a 70's style B movie look.”

Sister Death is Redfearn’s most immediately accessible work, an album that draws people in without forsaking the musical and emotional complexity that makes his sound so compelling. Redfearn is blessed with an ability to compose music that doesn’t fit easily into any known category, a farsighted artist able to push music in exciting new directions, while still remaining accessible. His accordion work is nothing short of astonishing, sounding one moment like a distortion drenched electric guitarist, the next like a mellow Balkan wedding musician. In an effort to describe Redfearn’s sound, critics have compared him to artists as varied as Bertolt Brecht, Erik Satie, Faust, Steve Reich, Richard Leo Johnson, Tom Waits, Harry Partch and The Velvet Underground. Elements of those artists may resonate within his work, but they all fall short of conveying the unique and intimate beauty of his music. Redfearn’s oblique lyrics are just as evocative; they illuminate the inner dance we all do when we’re face to face with our most roubling emotions with an ironic humor that cuts to the heart of the human dilemma.

Sister Death continues to expand on Redfearn’s singular vision with another excursion into subliminal emotion and skewed songwriting, a worthy addition to his already impressive catalogue. It explores the mysteries of life, death, love, loss, creation, and destruction, subjects that have informed Redfearn’s songwriting since the early 90s. The title Sister Death is taken from St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun.

"I spent about 6 years writing for this record. I've trashed dozens of tunes along the way. This record is probably the most accessible of our releases so far. I spent a lot of time obsessing over kraut-rock, space rock and psychedelic rock in the past few years, so that influence is bound to be felt. I've tried to move away from the Eastern European/Gypsy sound...we've always tried to change things up as we went. Probably the biggest change in our sound is the addition of Orion on the Acetone Top 5 organ and vocals. These latest songs have been built around the keyboard and accordion, but it still sounds like us. Some things simply don't change. My melodic obsessions and idiosyncrasies remain imbedded in the music, and I suppose they always will be."
- Alec K. Redfearn

“Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores deliver a lushly orchestrated, epically sweeping, Lynchian mix of creep cinematic themes and towering gypsy-infused art-rock.”- New York Music Daily

“This is wonderful stuff - brave and experimental, yet warmly human. Make room on your folk revival shelf for something that may beinfluenced by folk, but is in no way a revival.”- Splendid Magazine

“Harmonica, violin, banjo, and uke are twisted and morphed into sinister yet harmonious sounds, while Redfearn and his accordion lead the proceedings on Sister Death. He has love, betrayal, and death on his mind, translated through imagery rife with fire and snakes.”
- The Phoenix

“If you really want to venture out into avenues unknown, this collection of cabaret, prog rock, avant-garde, folk, electronica, and jazz is something you might want to consider.”
- Sea of Tranquility

“The whole album feels like one long story, each song is a chapter pushing us further along.”
- The Noise

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE FOR SISTER DEATH //TO DOWNLOAD A PDF OF CUNEIFORM'S OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE / BAND BIO, click HERE

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Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores ::Band Bio

Alec K. Redfearn is a composer, accordionist, songwriter, improviser and performance artist who grew up listening to hardcore (The Minutemen, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers) and metal (Slayer, Metallica). He moved to Providence, Rhode Island in the late 80s and became involved in the AS220 Arts and Performance Collective. “I taught myself accordion as a reaction to grunge,” Redfearn explains. “Anything that’s hyped, I immediately despise. Since accordion was hated, I said ‘this will be my fuck you’ to the rock world. Then I got obsessed with it.” The accordion led him to British folk, Eastern European, and Indian classical music.

He listened to gypsy music in all its global variations, as well as Turkish and Arabic music, discovering their intersections with Western sounds. He started Space Heater, an absurdist “miniature industrial” band that evolved into the Amoebic Ensemble. Redfearn composed the bulk of the music, a mix of classical, rock, and folk influenced by Weimar Republic composers, traditional European folk music, free jazz and punk. The noise music explosion in Providence made him realize he could take the music he was doing - a mix of circus-y sounds and the folk music he’d been listening to - and combine it with punk to make “the kind of aggressive music the noise bands were.”

When the Amoebic dissolved, he founded Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores, combining the influences shared by Amoebic (folk, cabaret, jazz) with a melancholy atmosphere invoked by Redfearn’s bleak lyrics and songs based on country and rock music. The band’s 1998 debut, The Eyesores, was a six-song cassette. After a series of self-produced mini-albums, they cut a proper album, May You Dine on Weeds Made Bitter by the Piss of Drunkards, on Magic Eye Singles. Bent at the Waist (Handsome 2002), their second offering was hailed as for its left-field alternative pop sound. Every Man For Himself & God Against All (Corleone, 2003) was embraced by lovers of avant, experimental and indie-rock music. Dream Magazine raved: “From harsh nightmare riddles, to sweetly swooning tranced-out droning somnambulant reveries, psychedelic folk, prog-rock, old-time country, acidic cabaret, dark circus music, and sinister dream fragments … well worth investigating.”

In 2005, Cuneiform released The Quiet Room, a 15 song, primarily instrumental album featuring an 11-piece band plus guests laying down lush layers of strings, horns and feedback - electronics, telephones, noise-making devices - over a solid backbone of drums/percussion, accordion and bowed contrabass. On The Smother Party (North East Indie, 2006) Redfearn and the band played in a more traditional song format and, although the subject matter was grim, they were presented with a playful, fairy tale-like lyricism.

The Blind Spot (Cuneiform, 2007) was a musically and conceptually ambitious work, mixing classical and folk instrumentation, electronics and processed noise, vocals and invented/experimental musical instruments. It was a multifaceted epic, a lyrical requiem mass in secular form, but highly spiritual, a cathartic work that dealt with Redfearn’s own drug addiction and coming to terms with the friends he lost on his path to sobriety.

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PRESS CONTACT INFORMATION

If you would like to interviewAlec K. Redfearn about the new video, european performances
or request a promotional copy of Sister Death, please contact: